Warriors draft Stephen Curry: The mid-major risk

Viewing the NBA Draft from a college perspective, I can’t help but wonder if the Warriors (or Phoenix, by possible-trade-partner extension) didn’t take a substantial risk by using the No. 7 pick on Davidson guard Stephen Curry.

Maybe he’s the exception — and there is a lot to like about him, sure — but it’s not like players from so-called “mid-major” programs have lit up the NBA.

I went through every draft this decade and found that just six mid-major players have been selected in the top-10.

The Warriors had better hope Curry is the exception.

Before delving any deeper, let’s define mid-major as the second tier of programs/conferences, behind the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC.

For the purposes of this exercise, there are two exceptions to the above definition:

I’m not counting the Bob Huggins-coached Cincinnati teams of the early 00s as a mid-major, and and I’m certainly not counting the John Calipari-coached Memphis teams of the late 00s as a mid-major.

Anyone who followed Cincy and Memphis knows they had more in common with NBA teams than with, say, Southern Conference teams (Curry’s alma mater is a member of the Southern).

Mid-majors — hate the term but don’t have a better one — are from leagues like the Mid-American, Horizon, Missouri Valley, Colonial, West Coast, Mountain West, Sun Belt … and Southern.

Anyhow, here’s the list of players from mid-majors who have gone in the top-10 this decade:

Maybe it’s the lack of elite competition they faced in college — not only game after game but, more importantly, practice after practice — but none of those mid-major products have turned into all-stars.

Kaman and Bogut are solid players. White was a career backup. Araujo, Morrison and O’Bryant have been busts. (I thought A-Mo would be a 16 ppg scorer. Ooops.)

Throw all their NBA seasons into a pot — we’re talking about more than 20 — and you could make a pretty good case that only one has been equal to the draft pick spent on it: Kaman’s in 2007-08.

Will Curry, who’s the only guard among the mid-major/top-10 picks, be the exception?

It’s easy to say right now, fresh off his brilliant Davidson career, that he’s a better pro prospect than his mid-major predecessors. But how will he compare three years from now?